Hurricane Ida caused power outages for 1.2 million customers nationwide, but most have regained power

A final tally from the United States Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) put service outages caused by Hurricane Ida between August 29 and September 1 at up to 1.2 million customers throughout the country.

Louisiana was the hardest hit in terms of outages, but Mississippi and Alabama were also hit by the storm’s initial fury, before it proceeded into the Northeast, where it caused at least 232,000 more outages across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts, as well as numerous deaths. In Mississippi, service was almost entirely restored by September 7, and most of the affected in the Northeast had power back within 24 hours.

That has not been the case in Louisiana, which as of that same timeframe had about half a million customers still without power. However, after 15 days of restoration work, Entergy Louisiana reports that it has restored power to more than 90 percent of all customers who had lost power as a result of Ida, leaving approximately 87,000 still in the dark as of 9 a.m. on September 14. Still, that figure was down from a peak of more than 902,000 outages charted by Entergy at the peak of the storm.

“This progress is a testament to the dedication of our tens of thousands of workers and their willingness to do whatever it takes for our customers,” John Hawkins, Entergy Louisiana vice president of distribution operations, said. “For those who are still without power, we want you to know that we won’t rest until every light is back on. However, restoring this many customers this quickly after a near category 5 hurricane is truly remarkable.”

By the company’s estimates, power may not be restored to some of those still affected in southeastern Louisiana until somewhere around month’s end, though.

Entergy estimated that Hurricane Ida damaged as many as 30,000 utility poles, more than 36,000 spans of wire and nearly 6,000 transformers, doing more damage than Hurricanes Katrina, Ike, Delta and Zeta alike. The hurricane made landfall as a Category 4 storm. As crews continue to work, though, they now have to worry about the encroaching threat of Hurricane Nicholas as well.